Hematological Response of Anemic Rats to hemosiderin and ferrous sulfate

Abstract

Biovailability of iron in ferrous sulfate and hemosiderin, prepared from pork liver in our laboratory, was evaluated in terms of hematological indices. Twenty-one days old fifty-four male Wistar weanling rats were made anemic by feeding a casein-based, iron-deficient diet for 1 week and withdrawing blood from retro-ocular veins twice a week. Anemic rats were divided into 9 groups and fed, for additional 6 weeks, with the iron-deficient diet or the diet supplemented with ferrous sulfate and hemosiderin at 6, 12, 18, 24 mg iron/kg diet. Significant depression was observed in blood parameters of both anemic rats fed with the iron-deficient diet and those diets supplemented with ferrous sulfate or hemosiderin at 6 mg iron/kg diet than other groups(p<0.05). No significant difference was observed in blood parameters between the groups on the ferrous sulfate and the hemosiderin diets; However, the hemosiderin diet gave slightly higher but statistically insignificant values than in animal fed with the ferrous sulfate. Therefore, these data indicate that hemosiderin is a good source of iron for nutrition.